


Dark Profference

by QueenAng



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Guilt, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAng/pseuds/QueenAng
Summary: Drift makes the awful discovery that, while Deadlock, he nearly killed Ratchet in battle.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet
Comments: 20
Kudos: 200





	1. Chapter 1

Drift couldn’t possibly remember all the battles he had partaken in while serving as Deadlock. In fact, he had done a relatively good job the past few thousand years of burying those memories as deep as possible, repressing every single thing that might conjure up the image of the Decepticons’ best gunslinger, both to himself and others. He traded his guns for swords; he lost the heavy battle armor in favor of his naturally lithe speedster form; he switched his optics to blue rather than back to gold, because gold, if it caught the light of the Autobot’s orange ships just right, would look too much like red for his comfort.

Drift wasn’t the only one on the Lost Light actively trying to bury his past. More than a few of the Autobots had little desire to remember the war as well. It had been callous to both sides, after all.

But then there were some who reveled in the memories, exchanging battle stories in Swerve’s like whoever could tell the most horrific was the victor of the night.

Drift kept to his corner as the night dragged on, doing his best to ignore the rowdy crowd that had gathered around the mechs relating their tales. He sipped slowly at his energon – plain and without a drop of the high grade that Swerve insisted was “actually really good, you just have to get used to it”. He didn’t miss the few odd looks cast his way during the tales; no doubt Autobots wondering if he had been present at this story or that, if _he_ had been the one to shoot down their comrades and shoot at their new friends.

Rodimus had long since retreated to his hab-suite, complaining about Ultra Magnus all the way out. Ratchet, who Drift normally spent his evenings and nights with, was locked in the med-bay with First Aid trying to repair the wounds from Cyclonus and Whirl’s latest brawling match.

A raucous cheer signaled the victorious end of a tale. Drift allowed a small part of himself to hope for peace in the following moments, but that was quickly crushed.

“I got one better for ya!” shouted a bot. An unfamiliar frame climbed atop the central table. “I was there at the Battle of Cybex Central!”

Drift clenched his cube a little tighter. He had been at Cybex Central; the siege and following battle there had lasted nearly a vorn, and Megatron had obviously called in all his best fighters. Deadlock commanded the ground, Starscream and his seekers circled the sky, and Soundwave ran logistics back at their makeshift base. It had been bloody and brutal, as were most battles near the start of the war, both sides still invigorated. By the end, Deadlock had been missing gaps in his armor and gallons of energon, which the strict rations didn’t help. Cybex Central had been a long, drawn-out, and ultimately useless battle, but the Decepticons eventually won, for whatever that was worth.

His olfactory sensors still remembered the first time he picked up burning energon as the fires that had scourged the city-state began to lap up the frames of their fallen. He had never heard so many screams, continuing past the daylight cycles and perpetually into the night. It was the first battle he saw Hook simply put a mech out of his misery rather than go about fixing him with false hope he would survive. The mech had begged, pleaded; Deadlock, leaking energon from a gaping blaster wound on his side, hadn’t bothered to rise to help him.

He snapped himself forcefully out of the memory, feeling dazed as he reentered the present. The mech on the table was still proudly recanting his story.

“—and next thing I knew, _BLAM_ , I was on the ground, blaster fire right through my left thigh.” He raised a pede to show off the weld-marks on his leg. “I was on the front lines, and I thought, _‘Primus, I’m a goner for sure, right?’_ The ’Cons’ ground forces were being led right my way, would be over top of me in just a klik.”

Drift remembered the charge, remembered being in front, his armor a patchwork mess of welds and only half full on energon. The troops were no better, but they outnumbered their Autobot enemies two to one. It was enough to keep morale up even as their smelters couldn’t keep up with the influx of offlined frames. Drift – handpicked by Megatron as Deadlock – served as a rallying point. He led every charge except for one; missing half his pede kept him down until Hook could salvage parts of frames to fix him. Those joors spent idle in the dark medbay had seemed the longest of the entire siege, between not wanting to risk accepting Hook’s offered painkillers and waiting anxiously to hear if he would still have troops left to lead come his finished repair.

“Then, next thing I know, I’m being dragged – screaming all the while – to behind a wall of rubble. When I get my optics free of static again, who do I see?” He paused for dramatic effect. “None other than the CMO himself!”

Drift felt the energon in his lines run cold.

“The white on his plating was almost black with ash and he was wielding his scalpel all scary-like, but it was him, no doubt. Told me if I died on him, he’d drag me back from the Well of Primus himself just to smack me upside the helm with a wrench. Right then, I thought he was an avatar of Primus.”

Drift thought his intake was going to close shut, as though he were still in the rubble of Cybex Central and ash and smoke still clogged his vents. Ratchet couldn’t have been there. Early in the war, it had been much easier to keep track of Ratchet, even from the other side. Drift knew – knew with absolute certainty – that Ratchet was still stationed in the smoldering heap of Praxus when the siege of Cybex Central began.

But… it had been a long siege. Reinforcements were called in constantly to replace the fallen ones, a never-ending stream of new faces. Starscream himself hadn’t even been present the first few cycles, still doing aerial raids over Praxus long after Megatron called him to Cybex Central. Ratchet could have reported to the Autobot side. Drift hadn’t had the resources there to keep tabs on him, and he didn’t bother to check his records after the battle because he knew Ratchet wasn’t there, he would have recognized him in an instant. But if Ratchet hadn’t looked like himself…

“He starts fixing me up, stopping the bleeding in my leg and then working on other wounds I didn’t even remember getting. All the while, blaster fire is soaring over us. Didn’t even phase him! I don’t think he ever even looked up at the mortar blasts.”

Yeah, that was definitely his Ratty.

“Then, all of a sudden, this fraggin’ Con leaps over the rubble we were camped out behind, two blasters in his servos. Ratchet’s guard went down first with one shot straight to the spark before he could get a word of warning out. Ratchet starts to say something – probably ‘bout being a medic and all – but the Con gets him right in the chassis.” The mech slammed a servo against his own chest, and Drift jumped at the sound.

“He’s gone quick as he came in, and suddenly I’m left with a dead guard and a dying CMO. Lucky he finished fixing me up just before the Con came over. I pull myself up, crawl over to him, and find he’s still kicking after all. Reinforced armor! Took a blaster shot straight to the glass of his chassis, shattered it all, half-exposed his spark, and he was still cursing Primus all the while!

“I did my best to patch him up with the medical supplies I knew how to work, but it was a real shoddy job. Never seen that much energon in my life – all over my servos, all over the ground, all over his armor.” Drift worried the cube would crack beneath the force of his grip. Flashes of all-too-familiar pink surged behind his optics. “And all the while, he’s got the nerve – the absolute _nerve_ – to tell me how I _ought_ to be doing it.” There were a couple laughs at that, which Drift couldn’t second.

“Had to end up dragging him back into the makeshift base in Cybex Central. We were a damned sight to see – his chassis in fragments, my leg half gone, covered in energon, both ours and his guard’s.

“’Course, Ratchet ended up fine. Pretty sure that mech could walk off a headshot at point blank range!” There was a cacophony of agreement from the crowd. “As for the Con who blasted his spark open in the middle of a battlefield, well, I hear the Hatchet’s gonna conjunx him!”

The silence hit harder than a blast. Drift was already rising from his seat before looks began to come his way. The jovial mood of the crowd around the table had dissipated into unease, laughs falling into whispers. He didn’t look their way, keeping his optics fixed on the exit.

“It must have been an unforgettable Act of Profference,” the mech on the table continued, optics latched onto Drift’s side. “The spark-felt gift of blaster-fire to the spark.”

Drift ignored him. With how tight his intake tubing felt, he didn’t think his vocalizer could spit anything more than static anyway.

“How can you possibly top such a gesture? Is the Act of Devotion going to be to rip his spark out with your own servos? For the Act of Intimacy will you force him to 'face? Do it the Con way and pin him down until—”

Drift didn’t know who he grabbed the laser pistol off of, but the next thing he knew, there was a standard issue one in his servos, the barrel smoking, and a new hole in Swerve’s wall, directly over the shoulder of the mech on the table. His rest of his Primus-damned sentence was lost to static as his vocalizer reset in shock.

Drift shoved the laser pistol into the chassis of the nearest bot, who fumbled with it in surprise. In the silence, all he could hear was the energon rushing through his lines. It should’ve been that bot, not Ratchet, never Ratchet. Swerve’s safety rules were never met, there were plenty of weapons within reach, he could really switch their spots now.

But that anger wasn’t his. It couldn’t be. Not anymore. The events at Cybex Central belonged to Deadlock, and they would stay with Deadlock.

He fixed his optics back on the exit and kept walking.

The mech got his gusto back the moment he faced Drift’s back. “You know what your Act of Devotion ought to be, Con? Let him go. Let him walk away without looking back to see where _else_ you’ll shoot him, or worrying he gets to walk away at all _this_ time. He didn’t make it through the whole war just to get captured by a Con now.”

Drift swept out of the bar, all too aware of the optics gazing – and glaring – at his retreating frame.


	2. Chapter 2

Drift didn’t make a conscious decision to go to the medbay; somehow, he ended up there anyway. It wasn’t the first. Maybe, a part of him suggested, it was the last.

He figured he didn’t have long – maybe half a joor, give or take – before Ultra Magnus had heard the report from the mech, reviewed the security footage, and finally come to arrest him. He wasn’t sure if Rodimus could pull him out the mess this time. He wasn’t sure if he wanted him to try.

The door to the medbay slid open and the yelling began immediately. “I’m _busy_! Unless your limbs are falling off or you—” Ratchet stopped, catching sight of Drift, of his low finials and dark optics. He took a wary step forward. “Kid, what happened?”

Drift didn’t realize he had stepped away in return until he processed the sudden look of hurt in Ratchet’s gaze.

He couldn’t see it now, whatever wound he had inflicted on Ratchet’s chassis. The glass had obviously been replaced, and he knew Ratchet had gone through a few minor reformats during the war. He knew, logically, Ratchet would only do it if he had to, if his frame required it, but he never considered the idea that _he_ had possibly been one of the mechs behind it. He had seen Ratchet’s spark a scant few times, worshipped it like it was a gift from Primus himself, and he couldn’t connect the image of that soft blue glow to the smoky haze of a battlefield.

“ _I’m sorry_.” The words tumbled out of Drift’s mouth, laced heavily with static. “I’m _so_ sorry. I didn’t know. I swear, Ratchet, I didn’t know—” And he stopped there, because that was an _excuse_ and a pitiful one at that. He should have known his Ratchet was there. A little bit of ash on his plating doesn’t excuse what Deadlock did to him, what Drift very nearly had to live with. The knowledge he does have to live with, now.

Ratchet set down whatever tool he was holding on the nearest counter. He edged two steps closer to Drift, a servo held out like he was placating a wild mechanimal. “Kid, I don’t have a clue what you’re going about. I can’t help you until you give me a little more information.”

Ratchet gestured to one of the plain white chairs in the medbay entrance, an invitation to sit down and discuss it, and the idea made Drift’s tanks churn. He could hear voices from further inside the medbay, nondescript mutters that could so easily turn into threats.

He took another step back, another step closer to the medbay door. He shouldn’t have come here. He didn’t deserve to be here, in this place of healing and life. He was a contaminant. He could have killed this medbay millions of years before it had the chance to exist.

The voices further in the medbay picked up. He took another step back. Ratchet said something; he didn’t know what. He should have stayed on the other side of the ship, as far away from Ratchet as possible. The crew already suspected him capable of returning to his old ways; they would mobilize against him quickly. He couldn’t stay here, where Ratchet could get caught in the crossfire. He couldn’t let him get hurt because of him again.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, because he needed Ratchet to know, when the news reached him. He started to retreat out the medbay doors, but a strong servo clasping tight over his wrist yanked him back in place, a heavy-built frame keeping him from dragging his way out. And he couldn’t fight him. He couldn’t risk hurting him again.

“You’re not doing this.” Ratchet’s voice turned hard. “You’re not going to come in here, freak out on me, and then run away to bottle up whatever _this_ is. We do this together, remember? Because we’re a team. _Conjunx_.”

Except the mech’s words were still ringing in Drift’s audials, and _conjunx_ now sounded akin to _shackle_ and _together_ sounded like a punishment rather than a gift from Primus.

Hyperaware, Drift recoiled once the sound of nearing footsteps met his audials. His optics met the door leading further into the medbay before First Aid appeared, holding a glowing blue data-pad in his servos. “Ratchet? Was it Tailgate again? Did he—” His visor widened a little at the sight of Drift. “Is he okay?” A stern look at Ratchet followed. “You know you aren’t allowed to treat him. I can—”

“It’s fine.” Ratchet held out a servo to pause First Aid’s rant. “It’s nothing physical. Just give me a minute, Aid.”

Instantly, the crossness melted from First Aid’s faceplates. His visor brightened. “Take your time,” he said, once again the epitome of politeness, and stepped back into the medbay.

Drift waited for the door to click shut before he dared speak again, cutting off Ratchet before he could begin. “Ratchet, I’m sorry, really, I—”

“No, enough of that,” Ratchet said, voice firm. “I heard you the first five times. I may be old, but my audials still work fine.”

“I know, but Ratchet, I—”

Ratchet cut him off again. “You got two options, kid: We can talk about it here, or we can go back to the hab and talk about it. None of this vague stuff is going to work with me.”

Staying in the medbay meant First Aid would likely hear. He was kind, probably too kind to Drift, tolerating him loitering around the medbay while Ratchet finished up his shift. If he found out about Cybex Central, if his voice started whispering doubts in Ratchet’s audials about Drift, if he stepped firmly between Drift and Ratchet during Ratchet’s shifts—

Drift wasn’t aware they had moved until Ratchet guided him into one of the chairs. He felt weak, like his pedes would have given out soon anyway and sent him crashing into Ratchet’s embrace. He would have been pulled tight against Ratchet in an inescapable hold, chassis flush with the glass of Ratchet’s own, his plating inches from where his blaster had blown out Ratchet’s armor and bared his spark to a raging battlefield.

He was weak, just in a different way than Deadlock had been. He allowed his helm to fall against Ratchet’s shoulder as the mech knelt in front of him. He smelled like antiseptic, like cleanliness, like something Drift had long ago associated with safety and kindness and some tumultuous emotion he would come to label as love. Inescapable, irresistible, immortal love.

The door to the medbay slid open, and Drift wasn’t surprised to catch sight of the tall blue form of Ultra Magnus casting a long shadow across the white room.

Ratchet pulled back to fix Magnus with a glare. “Whatever it is, it can wait. I’m a little busy right now, so you can—”

“I’m here for Drift,” Magnus said.

Drift saw the flash of wariness across Ratchet’s faceplates. “I’m afraid that will have to wait too,” Ratchet said, and Drift’s spark ached, knowing the futility of the protest. “He’s not exactly in a shape to—”

“I prefer to collect statements as soon after a crime as possible, to prevent memory corruption,” Magnus said. “Your authority has been overruled here.”

Ratchet stood up, but he didn’t move from Drift’s side. He shifted just enough to allow Magnus to look down at Drift directly. Drift didn’t say anything. Did he really need to?

“I have just come from Swerve’s,” Magnus said, as if Drift needed any explanation to why he was here. “Before I continue with my investigation, I would like to know if you wish to press charges against Pursuit for slander.”

Drift’s processor felt as though it did as a soft reboot. “If _I_ want to press charges?”

“Pursuit attempted to disrupt the peace. I have multiple corroborating statements that he purposefully initiated an interaction with you while you were attempting to walk away. Additionally, some of the allegations he made are either protected under the Reintegration Act or violate Cybertronian bylaws against serious false accusations.”

“He was right,” Drift said.

Magnus frowned. “About which part, exactly? Because any acts you committed during the war have been forgiven under the Reintegration Act, but if his accusation that you rape your conjunx is true—”

“That he _what_?” Ratchet said.

“—then we need to be having a completely different conversation.”

“Okay, both of you need to _hold on_ for a nanoklik,” Ratchet said, before Magnus could continue. “Someone needs to tell me – _right now_ – what is going on.”

“Storytime in Swerve’s got a tad out of control,” Magnus said evenly. “Pursuit recounted a tale of getting shot during the siege of Cybex Central, though accounts from two of his friends suggest he only told such tale for the purpose of antagonizing Drift once he saw he was in attendance. Following the recount, while Drift was attempting to leave the premises, Pursuit attempted to provoke a confrontation by making a few allegations regarding Drift’s relationship with you.”

“So you’re here to – what? – play rumor control?” Ratchet said.

“I’m here,” Magnus replied, “because my presence is required once any incident involves a weapon.”

“You didn’t mention a weapon,” Ratchet retorted.

“I shot at him,” Drift said, before Magnus could confess for him. Ratchet deserved to hear it from him. “Pursuit. I shot at him.”

“Considering Pursuit’s tale was one recounting the shooting prowess of Deadlock,” Magnus said, to Ratchet more than Drift, “no one present believes the intention was to cause harm, considering the shot went well over Pursuit’s shoulder.”

Ratchet pressed a servo to his face and took in a deep vent. “Okay,” he said slowly. “So once Drift clears up anything you’ve got questions on, he’s good to go?”

“Of course,” Magnus said.

Ratchet squeezed Drift’s shoulder. “That’s your cue, kid.”

“No,” Drift muttered. “I just want to forget this happened.” Except it would never be that easy. Not for Drift to forget Pursuit, and not for Deadlock to forget Ratchet.

Ultra Magnus nodded. “That is all I require at this time. Thank you, Drift. Ratchet.” He nodded once more in dismissal before bowing out of the room.

“C’mon,” Ratchet said, pulling Drift up from his seat. Drift didn’t say anything, just let Ratchet guide him out of the medbay, down the halls. He recognized the path to their hab-suite. He wondered if Ratchet was going to have him gather his things under his supervision, to make sure Drift had no excuses to come knocking again on Ratchet’s door.

Ratchet entered the passcode for the door and pulled Drift inside. Drift followed warily, aware that this could very well be his last few moments inside this hab-suite, this home – the first home he looked forward to returning to. He was more than aware how little he actually deserved it, how much less he deserved Ratchet.

The medic pointed sternly to the couch. “Sit,” he said, and Drift obeyed wordlessly. Ratchet remained standing, positioned between him and the door, as though he could bodily prevent Drift from running from this conversation. “Now, tell me what the frag happened at Swerve’s.”

“It was me,” Drift said. “I remembered Cybex Central.”

Ratchet’s gaze softened. “Kid, Cybex Central was tough on every bot that was there. We all got hit with some slag. Whatever happened to you, you’re not alone. Rung can—”

“It’s not what happened to _me_ ,” Drift said. “I—” His vocalizer forcefully cut off.

Ratchet took a step forward, then another, and then he sat down beside Drift. A servo brushed lightly against his arm, as though asking for permission to touch. When Drift didn’t flinch back, Ratchet latched a steady hold onto him. “Every bot did things they regret during the war,” Ratchet said.

Yes, and Drift had learned to repress most of what he had done. But this was an entirely different matter. This had to do with _Ratchet_. This had to do with the one thing Drift thought he could do right: Protect Ratchet.

“Drift, if this is—”

“I shot you.” The words tumbled out of his reset vocalizer. “I’m the one who shot you, at Cybex Central.”

Ratchet stared at him for a long moment, as though waiting. Finally, he said, “Yeah, kid, I know.”

Drift did flinch back then. “You knew?” he said. “You knew it was Deadlock at Cybex Central?”

Ratchet’s expression was unmoved. “You shot my chassis, not my optics. I saw you just fine.” His voice, though gruff, was kind. Drift could have melted against him, but he held himself back, knowing he was undeserving of such a touch.

“How could you… let me…?” Words failed him. He gestured to the room, to the sundry mix of their items scattered around, intermittent with one another.

Ratchet leaned forward and Drift pulled back. He didn’t attempt to chase the touch. “Drift,” he said, “what happened, back when you were Deadlock, I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. Long before I picked you up off that backwater planet.” At Drift’s incredulous look, he added, “I was mad at you still, for some time. I still get mad at you, when you leave your swords where I can trip over them and when you kidnap me from the medbay—”

“First Aid comms me to come get you off his servos.”

“—and I _still_ love you, even when I’m furious with you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I’ve never regretted it. I walked into this with my optics open. I always knew what I was getting, _who_ I was getting.”

Drift cast his optics down, though Ratchet undoubtedly saw the optical fluid building up. “I hurt you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I loved you, since the day in the Dead End, and I swore I’d put a blaster to the helm of any mech that so much as _looked_ at you wrong, and I hurt you.”

“It was an accident,” Ratchet said. “You didn’t know it was me.”

“I should have.”

“Kid.” Ratchet sighed. “Look. It happened. You can’t change it. I’m not going to lie, the shot hurt like slag and the next few vorns were the absolute Pit” – Drift winced hard – “but I came out fine. Bludgeon did worse to me before the war even started. Hell, you aren’t even the one who got the best shot at me during the war.”

Another failure of his. If he had been there for Ratchet… “I’m sorry.”

“Fine, then. I forgive you. Are we good now?”

“No!” Drift recoiled. “I hurt you! I almost killed you! I was in love with you and I nearly snuffed out your spark. Sorry isn’t enough.”

“Well, I say it is.” Ratchet’s voice carried a strong tone of finality, one Drift had learned better than to argue with. “I’m the wronged party, aren’t I? I say we’re good now, we’re good now. There.”

“Ratchet…”

He shook his head. “No. Enough of that, it’s settled.”

Drift finally lost the internal fight raging inside him. He fell forward against Ratchet, the medic’s chevron pressed against his own forehelm. “How can you forgive me?”

“Because I love you.” A gentle touch stroked the base of a finial. “Why can’t you forgive yourself?”

“Because I don’t love me.”

“Well, tough luck, because I do,” Ratchet said. “And I don’t care if it’s you or Pursuit or Optimus himself, I don’t tolerate anyone bad-mouthing my conjunx. Understand?”

Drift smiled faintly. “Understood.”

“Good. Now, describe this Pursuit fellow to me. I need to make sure I weld the right mech’s face-plates to his aft.”


End file.
